IN IMITATION OF VIRGIL'S POLLIO.
ADVERTISEMENT.
In reading several passages of the Prophet Isaiah, which foretell the coming of Christ and the felicities attending it, I could not but observe a remarkable parity between many of the thoughts, and those in the Pollio of Virgil. This will not seem surprising, when we reflect, that the Eclogue was taken from a Sibylline prophecy on the same subject. One may judge that Virgil did not copy it line by line, but selected such ideas as best agreed with the nature of pastoral poetry, and disposed them in that manner which served most to beautify his piece. I have endeavoured the same in this imitation of him, though without admitting anything of my own; since it was written with this particular view, that the reader, by comparing the several thoughts, might see how far the images and descriptions of the prophet are superior to those of the poet. But as I fear I have prejudiced them by my management, I shall subjoin the passages of Isaiah, and those of Virgil, under the same disadvantage of a literal translation.[1]
This is certainly the most animated and sublime of all our author's compositions, and it is manifestly owing to the great original which he copied. Perhaps the dignity, the energy, and the simplicity of the original, are in a few passages weakened and diminished by florid epithets, and useless circumlocutions.—Warton.
All things considered, the Messiah is as fine and masterly a piece of composition as the English language, in the same style of verse, can boast. I have ventured to point out a passage or two, for they are rare, where the sublimity has been weakened by epithets; and I have done this, because it is a fault, particularly with young writers, so common. In the most truly sublime images of Scripture, the addition of a single word would often destroy their effect. It is therefore right to keep as nearly as possible to the very words. No one understood better than Milton where to be general, and where particular; where to adopt the very expression of Scripture, and where it was allowed to paraphrase.—Bowles.
The fourth eclogue of Virgil is devoted to celebrating the coming birth, while Pollio is Consul, of a boy whose infancy will usher in the golden age, and whose manhood will witness its fullness. Wars are to cease; the beasts of prey are to change their natures; the untilled earth is to bring forth fruits spontaneously; and peace, ease, and plenty are to reign supreme. The names of the parents of this expected child are not recorded, and the commentators are greatly divided upon the question. The most reasonable conjecture is that the intention was to do homage to the ruling genius at Rome, Augustus, or Cæsar Octavianus, as he was then called, whose wife Scribonia was pregnant at the time. Unhappily for the prognostications of the poet the infant "proved a daughter, and the infamous Julia."[2] Virgil grounds his glowing anticipations upon certain Cumæan or Sibylline verses; for, as Jortin well remarks, he would have deprived his announcement of all authority if he himself had set up for a prophet. He could only hope to accredit his promised marvels by appealing to an oracle that was popularly believed to be inspired. "The Sibylline books," says Prideaux, "were a main engine of state. When they were ordered to be consulted the keepers of them always brought forth such an answer as served their purpose, and in many difficulties the governors helped themselves this way."[3] Virgil was equally diplomatic. He probably had no faith in the wonders he announced. His object was to pay court to Augustus, and to assist in establishing his patron's power.
The resemblance which portions of the Pollio bear to passages in Isaiah is generally admitted. "This," says Pope, "will not seem surprising when we reflect that the Eclogue was taken from a Sibylline prophecy on the same subject." He does not attempt to explain how the Sibyl came by her knowledge, unless he means us to infer that she was divinely illuminated. This theory has been supported by learned men, and would be warranted if the eight books of Sibylline oracles, still extant in Greek verse, were anterior to the Christian era; for since they often go beyond the Old Testament predictions in historic precision, the insight into futurity could not have been gathered exclusively from the Scripture prophets. But the existing oracles, says Jortin, "are without any one exception, mere impostures. They abound with phrases, words, facts, and passages taken from the Septuagint and the New Testament, and are a remarkable specimen of astonishing impudence, and miserable poetry."[4] Still there remains the circumstance of the parallelism between parts of Isaiah and the Eclogue which Virgil based upon the Sibylline verses. It is easy to account for the coincidence. The original Sibylline books were accidentally burnt B. C. 83. A few years later the senate employed agents to glean together from Italy, Greece, Sicily and Africa a body of prophecies to replace the oracles which had perished. The collection was from private as well as public sources, and a vast number of the same or similar predictions were in the hands of individuals at Rome. The Jews were located everywhere; they abounded in Rome itself; they were animated by the expectation that the reign of the Messiah was approaching; their prophetic records were incomparable for poetic beauty, sublimity, and variety; the language of the Septuagint was well understood by lettered pagans, and was even the language of the new Sibylline oracles, which were embodied in Greek verse. When all these things are considered, it would be strange if the persons employed to pick up prophecies had not come across notions, which had either been derived from personal intercourse with Jews, or from their sacred books. Although the entire world had been sunk in stupid apathy, and not a single heathen had been attracted by curiosity to turn his attention to Hebrew literature and beliefs, it was yet inevitable that a crude conception should get abroad of the leading idea which fermented in the mind of the ubiquitous Jew, and nothing was more likely than that it should be put into Sibylline verse when Roman agents were searching far and wide for oracles, and inviting contributions from every quarter.
Pope's Messiah first appeared in the Spectator for May 14, 1712, No. 378, where it is prefaced by these words: "I will make no apology for entertaining the reader with the following poem, which is written by a great genius, a friend of mine, in the country, who is not ashamed to employ his wit in the praise of his Maker." After it was published, Steele wrote on June 1, 1712, to Pope, and said, "I have turned to every verse and chapter, and think you have preserved the sublime heavenly spirit throughout the whole, especially at 'Hark a glad voice,' and 'The lamb with wolves shall graze.' Your poem is better than the Pollio." Upon this Johnson remarks, "That the Messiah excels the Pollio is no great praise, if it be considered from what original the improvements are derived." Bowles and Warton thought that Pope had kept up his verse to the level of Isaiah, and had only here and there weakened the sublimity by epithets. Wordsworth was of another opinion. When he contended that the language of poetry should be a selection from the real language of men "in a state of vivid sensation," and repudiated the ornate conventional phraseology which passed for poetic diction, he pointed to the paraphrases on parts of the Bible in illustration of what he condemned, and to the passages as they exist in our authorised version for a specimen of what he approved. "Pope's Messiah throughout" was in his apprehension an adulteration of the original.[5] His criticism appears well founded. The pure and natural language of the prophet is sometimes exchanged for sickly, affected expressions. "Righteousness" becomes "dewy nectar," "sheep" the "fleecy care," and the call upon Jerusalem to "Arise and shine" is turned into an invocation to "exalt her tow'ry head." Apart from these mawkish phrases, the imitation is framed from first to last upon the mistaken principle that the original would be embellished by amplifications, by a profusion of epithets, and by a gaudier diction. The "fir-tree and box-tree" of Isaiah are called by Pope "the spiry fir, and shapely box." Where the sacred text announces that "instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle-tree," Pope tells us that
"To leafless shrubs the flow'ring palms succeed,
And od'rous myrtle to the noisome weed."